Mintos limits Belarus loan exposure and looks for SWIFT alternatives
Mintos is limiting investor loan exposure to Belarus and is exploring alternatives to the SWIFT international payments system so Russian loan originators can continue making repayments.
Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, the European lending marketplace has said it is excluding loans from Belarus from the primary market and pausing adding new loans from the country until further notice.
Belarus is a neighbouring country to Ukraine and its president Aleksandr Lukashenko is a Putin supporter. Today it has been reported that Belarus has invaded Ukraine, joining Russia’s attack.
Existing loans from Belarus will remain in Mintos strategies, so it will be possible to cash out these loans, and the platform’s secondary market will stay open for Belarus loans.
Mintos has paused rouble currency exchanges after it dropped by around 30 per cent on Monday morning, because the service provider it uses for this has stopped offering it due to unprecedented external factors in the financial markets.
The platform said that lenders might not be able to withdraw roubles from their Mintos investor accounts, or exchange them for euros. It added that over the next few days it will make the exchange from roubles to euros for investors.
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After the Russian rouble dived significantly against other currencies, Mintos said it cannot forecast to what extent lending companies will be affected by this.
The platform said a number of its lending companies from Russia have full or partial currency hedging in place, but the current situation might result in lending companies finding it difficult to cover for currency risk.
In addition, Mintos said with its lending companies it has identified a few different routes that Russian lending companies could use as alternatives to SWIFT, the global payment system the West has cut some Russian banks off from.
The platform added that it had not yet experienced any interruptions in transfers of borrower repayments by Russian lending companies.
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“We will be able to expand on this only after we know the full scale of the sanctions’ impact on the money transfers from Russia,” Mintos said in a blog on its website yesterday.
“We will share an update as soon as we have more information…
“It’s important to mention that as of today, we have not experienced any interruptions in transfers of borrower repayments to Mintos by Russian lending companies. Lending companies have reduced issuance volumes, and they’re closely monitoring borrowers’ repayment discipline.
“The only lending company on Mintos from Ukraine is obviously influenced by the state of emergency and martial law in the country. We will continue to be in close contact with lending companies from Russia and Ukraine and share important updates on our blog.”
Last week, Mintos removed loans from Russian and Ukrainian lending companies from its conservative strategy before excluding all loans from both countries from the its primary market.